University Governance

FACULTY SENATE
March 12, 2009 – Room #106, Green Hall

Approved 3/26/09

PRESENT: David Brackett, Matt Burke, Marta Caminero-Santangelo, James Daugherty, Ben Eggleston, Ada Emmett, Mark Ezell, Robert Harrington, Doug Huffman, Nancy Kinnersley, Man Kong, Liz Kowalchuk, Chuck Marsh, Brent Metz, Jim Orr, Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, Barbara Phipps, Gitti Salami, Iris Fischer Smith, Dan Spencer, Jeff Staudinger, John Stratton, Rodolfo Torres, Donna Tucker, Tony Walton, Lisa Wolf-Wendel.

EXCUSED: Mary Berry, Melissa Birch, Mohamed El-Hodiri, Allen Ford, Lisa Friis, Joe Harrington, Alice Lieberman, Steve Maynard-Moody, Joyce McCray-Pearson, Jean Peterson, Jean Phillips, John Staniunas, Kelli Thomas, Stacey S White.

            (Please contact Molly Mulloy if you were indeed present)

ALSO PRESENT:  Molly Mulloy, Governance; Kathy Reed, Governance; Danny Anderson, Provost’s Office; Prof. Rick Hale; Professor Rick Levy.

            President Nancy Kinnersley called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. and announced changes today in the order of items on the agenda.

REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON THE HANDBOOK FOR FACULTY AND OTHER UNCLASSIFIED STAFF
            Nancy Kinnesley welcomed Prof. Rick Hale, chair of the Task Force, and Prof. Rick Levy, recorder for the Task Force who was prepared the working draft.
            Levy explained that the Faculty Executive Committee, with the support of the Provost, created the task force last spring to develop a new Handbook to replace the obsolete 1986 and 1998 versions and to recommend policies that should be moved from the Handbook to the CODE/FSRR/USRR or the University Policy Library.  The task force membership included unclassified staff and academic staff as well as faculty.  As the Recorder, Levy prepared the working draft of the new Handbook last summer. The task force worked throughout the fall semester to discuss and finalize the document.
            Levy noted that the old Handbook was problematic in that the Preface acknowledged that it was not a legally binding contract and that it could be changed by the administration.  However, important faculty policies such as the Faculty Code of Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct and the procedures for the Faculty Rights Board were only found in the Handbook. Levy explained that the new Handbook is a “descriptive gateway” with hypertext links to policies that exist elsewhere, such as in the University and Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations or the University Policy Library.   The Task Force recommended that certain policies in the Handbook be moved to a temporary home in the Policy Library until they can be updated and moved to a permanent site.
            The Task Force created four sub-committees that will make recommendations on policy areas by the end of this semester: 1) policies affecting professional staff; 2) policies affecting academic staff; 3) the Code of Faculty Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct; and 4) procedures for the Faculty Rights Board. 
            Task Force chair Rick Hale stated that Governance can set the timelines and priorities for updating the policies that are being temporarily moved to the Policy Library. In response to a question about faculty evaluation policies, Levy said the key is to have anchoring language in the FSRR and the detailed procedures in the Policy Library. Task Force member Lisa Wolf-Wendel added that the Task Force identified which entity should look at updating each policy; SenEx will use this list when writing charges for next year. Unclassified Senate President Paul Farran said he is confident that the sub-committee looking at the polices that affect his group will do an excellent job.  
            Levy and Hale answered many questions from Senate members and were thanked for meeting with the Senate today.

            Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Marta Caminero-Santangelo moved:  (1) That Governance endorse the preliminary report, including the adoption of the proposed Handbook and the Task Force’s plan for addressing certain policy issues this spring; (2) That the Provost take the necessary steps to replace the old Handbook with the proposed Handbook, including the actions identified under “short term recommendations” in the report; (3) That Governance committees and administrative officials support the task Force efforts this spring to frame issues and develop charges for further action regarding the “medium term recommendations” in the report; and (4) That Governance and the central administration develop priorities to address the policy issues identified under “long term recommendation” in the report. Passed without dissent.

MINUTES for February 26, 2009 were approved.

REPORT OF THE FACULTY SENATE PRESIDENT
Nancy Kinnersley reported that Reggie Robinson, CEO of the Board of Regents, contacted her to say that he and the chair of the Chancellor Search Committee, as well as the two KU faculty on the committee, would like to attend a Faculty Senate meeting this spring to discuss the role of faculty governance in the Chancellor Search process.
COFSP’s (the Council of Faculty Senate Presidents) new liaison from the Board of Regents is Gary Alexander, the Regents’ Vice President for Academic Affairs.  
COSFP is considering following up on the faculty  survey it conducted five years ago; the Regents would like this to be done on a regular basis.
            The discussion of the Faculty Senate Research Committee’s proposed new policy on “Open Access to Scholarship” will be discussed at the March 26th Faculty Senate meeting.  Kinnersley reported that the proposal has generated quite a bit of email to her.
            Kinnersley expressed appreciation to the Chancellor for speaking to FacEx about the Provost vacancy and Interim Provost position. She observed that it will be up to the new Chancellor to set up a search committee for the permanent Provost.

REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR PROMOTION AND TENURE (SPPT)
            Kinnersley reported that amendments to FSRR Article VI proposed by the SPPT committee were emailed to the faculty last week and will be discussed at the next Faculty Senate meeting. SPPT chair Mark Ezell noted that SPPT thinks some simple language should be added to the FSRR to clarify that if a person is denied tenure in the 6th year, he/she may not go up again in the terminal year.

AMENDMENT TO FACULTY SENATE RULES 5.4.4
            Nancy Kinnersley stated that this amendment will be voted on at the next Faculty Senate meeting.  A member pointed out that the “Timetable of Classes” is now called the “Schedule of Classes.” This edit was made to the proposal; the changes are shown in bold font below:
Section 4. Regulation of Enrollment Procedures:
5.4.4 A student may enroll in a course or change class sections after the semester has been in session for four weeks only if the course has met fewer than 25% of the class sessions. The College or a school may adopt a policy setting a shorter period for courses/classes offered by the College or School, provided that the policy is announced in the Timetable  Schedule of Classes for the affected term.  Students may enroll in courses with rolling start dates (KUCE, independent study, seminars, and internships) with the permission of the instructor at any point in the semester
           
No further business.
Respectfully submitted,
Molly Mulloy